Garm vs Dodonna

I got to play a game!

It had been awhile, but I actually made it into the FLGS for a game of Armada last night.  My opponent was Will, who had a Dodonna based fleet with Mon Karren supported by some Nebs, a GR-75, and some fighters.

I brought the fleet I described in yesterday's post.  




He had initiative and opted to go first.  He looked through my objectives and chose for us to play Advanced Gunnery, which I happily applied to my Home One.

He started by deploying his Mon Karren on my right.  I deployed my AF to fly across and in front of it.  He then started deploying his forces across and towards the center of the table to head off my battle line.

I dropped salvation last in a position to cut across my battle line where it was needed most.

Setup.  Really nice to start with all those Garm tokens.

When I started playing with Garm I was at first annoyed that my first couple of commands seemed useless as I already had a full stock of tokens.  I've since grown to love the flexibility he provides in those early turns.  I know that I can deploy in a generally neutral fashion and use my first two commands as Navigates and to set up the best speed and approach angles available.

I did that in this game by slowing down Salvation and flying more along the long side of the table then across it.

End of Turn 1

In my efforts to jockey around a little, I ended up needing to slow down the MC-80 to not run into the GR-75 or the squadrons.  This left a big gap in my battle line, but also gave a nice spot for Salvation to attack through.

His squadrons got the jump on mine, but Jan helped ensure that they didn't do too much damage.  That had been my plan.  By taking the first punch from the squadrons I brought his squadrons into my ship anti-squadron range.

End of Turn 2

My Assault Frigate had taken some damage from B-Wings and the Nebs, but was still in fine shape.  I bumped it up to speed 3 and shot it around the side of the Nebs where it would be safer.

My squadrons had mopped up his supporting X-Wings, but let the B-Wings escape.  The AF and Salvation had started to put the hurt on his Nebs.   A Y-wing took a shot at the side of a Neb.  It rolled a single hit and I used the BCC to fish for a better result and came up with a blank.  Oh well.

I ended up using the Engine Techs on the Home One to turn sharper and cut inside of his Nebs.  I figured that my other two ships could finish off the Nebs and wanted the Advanced Gunnery boosted Home One to take on Mon Karren.

End of Turn 3

Turn 4 saw the game swing heavily in my favor.  Salvation and the Assault Frigate were able to work together to kill off both Nebs and my squadrons started attacking his B-Wings.

His GR-75 snuck out of my range, but I started laying a pretty big hurt on his Mon Karren.  My Assault Frigate was hurting a bit from multiple attacks, but I was able to keep it safe and move it towards the station for some repairs.

End of Turn 4

During Turn 5 I was able to reload on tokens from Garm.  Home One took a big hit from Mon Karren, but mostly shrugged it off.  After that, the Advanced Gunnery boosted return fire easily killed Mon Karren in return.

His Bright Hope was able to escape my fleet at that point as I hadn't left anything that could hurt it.  Still, it was a big win for me with my only real causality being an X-Wing.  Having a place to escape with my Assault Frigate was a big deal.

Some thoughts on my fleet:

• I think it is good to have an escape plan for damaged ships.  One of the big advantages of broadside ships is that it is often easier for them to escape.
• I love Garm.  The flexibility in command choices from the tokens is just awesome.
• With the way this fleet is built I am mostly using the squadrons defensively.  I might get more use out of Gallant Haven than the BCC.
• Home One is such a great title.
• I used my new sparkly dice from Regionals and rolled pretty well.  I don't expect that will last.
• Salvation is such a great trailer/finisher.  The boost from Home One is really nice too.  I need to find a way to get Spinal Armaments on there too.